[The news yesterday morning about the tragedy in Nickel Mines and that the immediate victims were young Amish girls hit me hard.I assume that, combined with other recent events of random freelance terror, we are going to be subjected to the usual chorus of hand wringing and hypocrisy from political and religious leaders. There will be demands and leaders will pretend that they can "do something".
A policeman on every corner, metal scanners at every school, a lock on every door, obsequious presence of video cameras, vain calls for morality and righteousness in homes and public life and a guard behind every bed -- none of this will help.
The "incidence of evil" is something which has and always will occur as long as there is a pestilence in the land. However, in our world of high technology and intertwined interdependencies, the acts themselves can be more terrible and the effects on us magnified.]
1. Such Pestilence
It's kind of hard to understand, my friends,
The way we all fret about the odds and ends
Of things. As if somehow we could change
The incidence of evil, or perhaps explain
The way it sometimes boils into rage,
Explodes and splatters across the newspaper page
And shatters our peace of mind-- yet once again!
"A Wave of Evil!"
"The Consequence of Sin!"
Our leaders groan in their feigned innocence!
The world is based upon violence!
Almost every child knows this fact!
In fact, it is often part of the very act
Which brings us into our mortal existence!
How many, if any, are free of such pestilence?
[The above is the first of a cycle of 14 poems where the last line of each poem is the first line of the following. They were composed over a fortnight the summer of 1999, apparently as a reaction to Columbine.
The themes which developed as the work unfolded seem even more pertinent today than seven years ago. That's my reason to post the rest of the cycle the following days]
2 comments:
The evil that transpired with the systematic murder of the children has a recurring theme to a society where we live. Now here is the other side to this tragedy. The Amish have no axe to grind with anyone. Their existence is one of peace, harmony and internal resolve regarding their own issues. The statement which rings out loud and clear to those of us living within an hour’s travel time of Nickel Mines, was the” Predatoril Media” was kept and has been kept, completely away from these civilized people. The Amish will extend their prayers and offer contributions to the family of Charles Carl Roberts. They will forgive him for the acts he committed and also offer safe haven to the Roberts family. They will invite the Roberts to move in and live among them. The act was like Columbine, the response will not be the same.
To bad Nancy Grace… your vile kind, will not be getting a piece of this action..
Nuke Watcher
Baltimore, Md.
Thanks for your thoughts, Nuke. I hardly know how to respond.
There is a pestilence in the land. But just where it comes from or on what it feeds on is all too easy to blather on about.
Perhaps knowing in the back of our minds that we have stockpiles of infernal devices for which we have paid trillions of dollars to acquire and maintain -- the means to destroy the planet in one short hour is just sitting there and we accept it -- perhaps it eats away at our sense of reality and manifests itself in different ways.
I don't know, but like you imply, whatever it is, the Amish have hardly contributed to it in anyway.
I can't say anymore right now.
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